


Just the Game

by sarken



Category: Political RPF - US 21st c.
Genre: Last Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-24
Updated: 2007-06-24
Packaged: 2017-10-07 19:26:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarken/pseuds/sarken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Edwards can't do this again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just the Game

**Author's Note:**

> Kerry and Edwards' last kiss, for Mackha.

Just the game, just four quarters of relaxation -- the last Edwards will have until Super Tuesday. Just a game on television and a good friend who knows how this goes, how much he's about to risk. How much he already has.

Just the game, and just a few beers. A few cool brown bottles, slick with perspiration, their labels peeling under calloused fingertips. Kerry's head back, lips closing around the bottle's tip, tongue tracing the rim. The wrong bottle -- Edwards' bottle. He does it on purpose, Edwards knows. Just another power game, but the kind that's so very right.

Kerry pops the bottle from his mouth, his thigh against Edwards' thigh, khaki touching khaki. They're casual, comfortable, close. A cool, distant kind of close, the two of them in their khakis and polos, their feet on the floor. Their shoes are off, neatly paired and parallel just left of the couch. Navy blue socks for both of them, no holes.

Kerry leans forward, sets Edwards' drink on the coffee table -- on the coaster on the coffee table. No watermarks. Never any marks. Teresa hates when they leave marks, but they would be careful just the same. They would be gentlemen.

Kerry sits back, his hand on Edwards' knee. He slides deeper into the couch cushions, and his hand slides with him, slipping onto Edwards' thigh. Warmth travels where Kerry's hand does not.

A glance, eye contact, and Kerry leans in, eyes open. Edwards leans in, eyes shut.

The two of them, they're magnetic poles, but Edwards doesn't know if they're opposites or equals. He feels caught in their push-pull relationship, caught until the attraction pulls Kerry closer.

Contact, briefly, barely, the slightest brush of lips against lips. Edwards turns his head, and two people have never been so far apart. "John," Edwards says, "I can't do this anymore."

"This is it, then." Kerry's still in Edwards' space, still in the space of their kiss.

"No. The time before, that last time, that was it. This is nothing. I can't do this again." Edwards stands, walks a little. There is space here, but he remembers the bus. Awkward, clumsy groping, falling against walls with every bump in the road. Biting shoulders, leaving marks, keeping silent. "Not again, John."

"I see." Edwards' beer in the wrong hands again. Kerry peels off the label, closes the soggy mess in his fist. Three and a half years this has been over.

Edwards stands there in all that space, waiting. His nervous tongue licks his lips, and he can't believe he doesn't taste Kerry, never will again. "All right, then."

The naked brown bottle dangles from Kerry's fingers. "One more?"

One more is Edwards on Kerry, drinking him in, lips to lips with twice the force. Hands in hair, Kerry's leaving bits of label scattered like poor man's confetti in Edwards' hair. Hips grind against hips and two gentlemen make all the noise they can as Edwards' beer spills onto the carpet.

Kerry's polo shirt and khakis land on the future stain, and Edwards is on his knees with Kerry in his mouth. One more is the best worst decision he has ever made, and he swallows it down, one more taste before he can't do this anymore.

He gets off his knees, chases that last one with the rest of Kerry's beer. "All right, then," Edwards says again, and there's still a minute ten on the game clock when he leaves.


End file.
